A Million Issues
by celestial1
Summary: Disturbia: I thought it would be interesting if things weren't so neatly resolved. You know, like in real life. A story in three chapters about Kale and his mother. Now complete.
1. Prologue

**author's note. **I saw _Disturbia_ the other day, even though I'm not really a horror movie person. I thought it was okay but the ending was too abrupt, and far too neat. Granted, it's a movie, and I don't expect movies to provide a complex exploration of the psychological issues brought on by those sorts of experiences (especially not a movie that seems to be largely aimed at teens). Still, that's the place that fanfiction comes from, isn't it?

I was watching the deleted scenes and there's a great bit where Kale and his mom are kind of arguing - she asks if he wants to talk about anything and he's snarking about Iritated Ankle Disorder - and at the end he tosses off a 'Love you' before she leaves for work. And then I knew I'd found my angle for this story. I'm a big fan of the mother-son dynamic (my middle child is a boy; he's four, but I swear, I'd put an ankle bracelet on him if I could) but that's a relationship that usually gets shortchanged in movies and books. Usually it's about mothers and daughters, or fathers and sons. So, here you go. I took a few liberties with the facts of the movie; but then, the movie took a few liberties with facts itself, so I think the universe will forgive me.

And, I still haven't seen _Rear Window_ yet; it was a little farther down on my queue.

**

* * *

**

**Prologue**

_It is the absurdity of family life, the raggedness of it, that is at once its redemption and its true nobility - James McBride_

She was on the phone when it happened; she heard the whole thing, until the phone cut out and there was silence like a sudden stop. Julie didn't even think about it; she was guided, numbly, by some kind of instinct, shutting off the stove and climbing into her car. Of course she knew the route he'd taken - she'd driven it herself, too, plenty of times so she only half paid attention to the road signs, shouting into her cell phone and vainly searching the radio stations for news.

Eventually, Julie was pulled over by the highway patrol - no surprise, since she was going over ninety - and of course Officer White had heard about the pile-up. Five fatalities. Don't know how many survivors, but he did know one important thing, and that was where the victims had been taken. He gave her a police escort another forty-five miles to the small County General which was woefully understaffed to handle that kind of trauma. She checked her expectations at the ambulance bay doors. _They're dead_, she told herself, _they're both dead_.

But she heard the voice all the way down the hall. "I need my cell phone! I need to call my mom!"

"You can't use your phone inside the hospital, son," an older male voice explained. "We're trying to reach your family, okay? Just sit tight."

"I'm not your son!" The voice cracked, and Julie broke into a run. "I just need to get ahold of my…"

"Kale," she said, "you're all right."

"Mom." His lips quivered. 'All right' was actually a bit of a stretch; he was covered in tiny cuts from the windshield glass, with a badly broken leg; but he was alive, and Julie hadn't even allowed herself to consider this small grace. "Mom," he said miserably, his voice muffled by her embrace, "Dad's dead. I killed him. It's my fault. Please don't hate me, okay?"

"Shh," she soothed him, over and over again. "It's okay. You're all right, okay? It's not your fault. We're gonna be fine." And she held him until the nurses had to pry her off to take him for X rays.

* * *

Kale didn't make it to the funeral; he was still in the hospital an hour up the road when Daniel Brecht's earthly remains were laid to rest. Which was, Julie figured, probably not a bad thing at all. She wasn't deaf and she certainly wasn't stupid; she knew what the stares and whispers meant. _Is it true that Kale was driving_?

He slept on the couch the first few weeks after he finally got home, the bulky cast making the stairs to his room unmanageable. Julie didn't mind this so much because it reminded her of when he was a little boy, falling asleep to Scooby Doo cartoons whenever he was home sick from school. She had to remind herself not to be too indulgent, not to fuss over him too much because she knew it would drive him crazy.

"Hey Mom," he begged her one night, still slightly loopy from the drugs. "Tell me the story again. Why'd you name me Kale?"

Julie sat down on the coffee table opposite. "You know this one already."

"Yeah, but I like hearing it," he cajoled. "Please?"

"Okay," Julie agreed. "All right. It's because of your Great-Aunt Evelyn."

"Who wasn't related by blood…" he recited.

"Who wasn't related by blood, only by marriage. Your Grandpa Brecht's brother Gil married her in England, during World War Two, and brought her home on furlough. She was just a tiny little thing, maybe five feet tall in stocking feet, although of course she always wore heels. Evelyn was a lady. Only Gil got killed over Germany somewhere and here she was, stuck, in a foreign country with this family she barely knew. But everyone loved her, so she stayed. She never remarried, never had any kids."

"And when you got pregnant with me…" Already Kale's eyes were growing heavy.

"When I got pregnant with you, we told her first. See, your Grandma and Grandpa Brecht weren't too happy about Dan and me getting married when we did. They thought we were too young - we were both only twenty-one. They thought your dad should have gone on to graduate school instead of teaching. And now, with a baby coming, we knew they wouldn't be too happy - we lived in a tiny little apartment above a coffee shop; it barely had room for the two of us, let alone a crib."

"And you thought, 'No big deal, we'll just let the kid sleep in a shoebox or a dresser drawer or something.'"

Julie smiled indulgently. "Exactly. But we knew his parents would be mad, so we went to see Evelyn first. She always had such a good way of handling them - nobody could stay angry with her for very long. I think it was the accent. So, we went over to see her but with Evelyn, you couldn't just come right out and _say_ things. She had to get you filled up with tea and cookies first."

"Biscuits," Kale corrected, having heard this story many times before.

"Right. Biscuits. So, after half an hour or so of small talk, I finally managed to squeeze it in. I said, 'Dan and I have something to tell you.' And she looked right at me and said, 'You've been rolling about in the cabbage patch, haven't you?' Because when she was a little girl, her mother told her that babies were found in the cabbage patch. And I gasped and asked her how on earth she could tell, and she said, 'You just have that glow, my dear.' She was such a character, Kale. I wish you could have known her. So the hard part was over. Well, the first hard part, anyway. But then, see, Evelyn gave us a lot of pointers on how to break the news to Dan's mom and dad, and in the end they didn't burn us at the stake or disinherit us or _anything_."

"And then…"

"And then Evelyn died, just a few weeks before you were born. It came as a shock to us all; she was only sixty-fine but apparently she'd had a bad heart. That was what the doctor told us about her - 'She had a bad heart' - and I remember thinking what a silly thing that was for him to say, that anyone who knew her could tell she had a good heart. But what we didn't know about her was that she also had an enormous fortune. I don't mean Donald Trump fortune, but for a little old lady who lived in a one bedroom house, yeah, it was a lot. She'd made some prudent investments in the late forties and then just let it sit there. So in her will, she left some to the Red Cross, because they'd helped her when she was a war bride; she left some to your Uncle Paul -"

"Who immediately…" Kale prompted.

"Who immediately got the operation, and became Aunt Paula, and she left most of it to us. Your Dad was always her favorite, because when he was in his twenties, he was the spitting image of her dead husband Gil. Now, it was a shocking amount of money - not enough that we'd never have to work again, but enough to get us set up pretty good. So we bought this house - of course, that was before the housing boom, the house was pretty worn down then, shag carpeting, tacky wallpaper, you name it. We've put in a lot of work since then. But also, we figured out we had enough that your dad could quit teaching for a year. Just one year. And if he didn't sell a book, he'd go back to work, no harm, no foul. But of course you know how that turned out."

"Get to the part about me," Kale murmured.

"Okay," Julie agreed. "You were born just a few weeks after Evelyn died, so right in the middle of all this. And of course our first thought was that if you were a girl, we should name you Evelyn, after her. Your Dad pointed out that Evelyn could be a man's name, too - one of his favorite writers was Evelyn Waugh. But I vetoed that one pretty quickly."

"Thanks."

"No problem. Always looking out for you, you know? But I was thinking about what she'd said, about the cabbage patch. And I was thinking about cabbage - they gave me some pretty good drugs after the delivery - and I thought of kale, which is a leafy green vegetable and part of the cabbage family. And I thought, Why not? It's a good strong name, and it's bound to be better than Evelyn-the-boy. So, 'Kale' it was."

She looked down at him, the boy named after cabbage, and he was out like a light. Julie fussed with the blankets for a minute, in full mother mode now that he was asleep. _It's just you and me now, kid_, she thought. _But I think we're going to be okay. It'll get better, now._

She was, of course, wrong.


	2. Part One

**Part One**

She's trying to warn him, with her eyes and the whimpers muffled by her duct-taped mouth. _He's right behind me, Kale. Save yourself. Don't worry about me. Run._ But he isn't telepathic - he's barely spoken to her in the last year, let alone read her mind - and he does what anyone would do: he cuts her down first. At least he thought to bring the hedge clippers with him. Smart boy.

Only behind her, crouched in the shadows which seem to be infinite, is Robert Turner, the man who she now knows couldn't be anything _but_ a serial killer. As her body drops gracelessly to the floor, he leaps, with practiced movements and a knife in his hand. He's obviously done this before. And as Julie watches in horror, he sinks the knife blade into her son. Kale's primal scream rends the dank air.

The only reason she isn't screaming, too, is that she can't.

Turner has gotten him in the shoulder, and as Julie twists against her bonds Turner pulls the knife out and repeats the motion. _He's aiming for his heart_, she realizes. Turner is the physically stronger of the two - being simply a massive individual, he's intent on using this advantage - but Kale is agile, twisting out of the way, at least deflecting the blows away from any vital organs. They're backing towards the hole in the rotten floorboards, where Kale has already had a dunking in the lake of who-knows-how-many dead girls, and he clearly doesn't relish the thought of a repeat. They're locked in a deathmatch, this creepy, charming serial killer next door and her son, the child she carried underneath her heart for nine months.

And the strange thing is, the life that's flashing before her eyes isn't her own - it's **his**.

Groping in the semidarkness, Julie finds a smooth wooden handle. It's some kind of implement - a knife? How many knives does one man _need_? The moment she can reach him, she hurls it with all her might into Turner's leg. It's not much, but it's enough. The action knocks him off balance for a moment and Kale senses this; taking the momentary advantage, he impales the killer on his makeshift weapon. Turner is still swinging, but Kale is relentless. Finally, with his last effort he sends the older man over the edge and into the watery grave of his own making.

He turns back to her, not really seeing her, breathing hard. She makes her way towards him - he hasn't moved away from the edge, and she's a little bit afraid of him. Beneath their feet, Turner's body is still twitching, a desiccated corpse bobbing gently alongside him. Julie wishes she had a gun: she'd empty its chamber into him, just to make sure.

When she feels that enough time has passed, Julie places her hand on Kale's shoulder, as gently as she can. The blood is sticky and warm beneath her palm and she thinks he's probably going to pass out if he keeps breathing like that. She knows she needs to get him out of there; although she can hear the sirens, she's not leaving him alone for even a second. Not in this basement. Not in this house. Not in this _neighborhood_. "Kale?" she says. He turns back to her again. He still hasn't said a word. "Honey, we need to get out of here."

Mutely, he nods. Because it is dark, Julie slips her hand into his, guiding him as if he is a little boy. For good measure, she gives Kale's hand a squeeze. _Thanks for saving my life_. They edge around the hole in the floor, neither of them looking down at Turner's body now that it is still. Back up the stairs, through the man's homemade slaughterhouse and out to the garage. Julie pushes the button to open the garage door and when it doesn't respond she hits it again, harder, with her fist. She isn't too keen on sticking around here a moment longer, herself. The garage door lifts to the flashing lights of half a dozen police cars. As they duck under the door, Kale turns to her, licks his lips, and finally speaks.

"Mom?" he says.

"Yes, honey?"

"I think I need to lay down for a little while," he says, and then drops like a bag of rocks in the driveway.

* * *

"So, how bad is it?" Julie tries to avoid wringing her hands, because she knows that's a cliché. But she really can't figure out what to do with them, so they hang limply at the end of her arms. She feels like she's made of stone. Lead. Something heavy.

Dr. Kramer looks at her carefully. She isn't the hysterical mother he would expect. "A couple of broken ribs, probably he's got a concussion. Plenty of lacerations but nothing too serious."

"Except for the stab wounds."

"Yeah, the stab wounds," he agrees. "Whoever this guy was, he was pretty intent on turning your son into hamburger meat."

"He was a serial killer," Julie snaps. She puts a hand to the bridge of her nose, which is throbbing.

"Your son was stabbed seven times in the shoulder, back and chest," the doctor continues. "Lucky number seven. Actually, he _was _lucky - the killer just missed the brachial artery, or he could well have bled out in the ambulance. But look at this." He holds up an X ray to the light. "The tip of the knife actually snapped off."

She makes out the triangular shard of metal, edges vivid against the ghostly image of her son's bones. "I need to see him," she says suddenly.

"They're prepping him for surgery now…" the doctor stalls.

"Please. He must be _terrified_."

Dr. Kramer looks at her. "Mrs. Brecht, you've got a broken nose. You really should let someone take a look at that."

"But it can wait, right? What's a few more minutes?"

"You're right," he concedes, "it can wait. This way, okay?"

Julie hesitates for just a moment in the doorway of the trauma room. She hadn't really wanted to relive this scene, not ever, and especially not this soon. It's only been fifteen months. But for his sake, she forces herself inside.

It's been a little over an hour since Robert Turner was forcefully dispatched from this earthly life.

What she sees takes her by surprise, even frightens her a little. It's his eyes. Julie had expected to see pain and fear in his eyes, but instead she finds… _nothing_. Like he's already checked out.

All things considered, Julie can't really blame him.

She circles around to the end of the bed, the only break in the buzz of activity. "Kale, honey," she whispers in his ear, "I'm right here, okay? I'll be waiting for you."

Julie kisses the top of her son's head, and in the next instant the double doors bang open and he is gone.

* * *

"How's he doing?"

The nurse with kindly eyes sizes Julie up. "He's still in and out," she says. "He's got a low-grade fever, too - probably picked up something bacterial when he was in the water. I'm sure it was pretty gross."

Julie closes her eyes briefly; she doesn't like to envision her son among the floating bodies of all those dead girls…

"But Dr. Reed has started him on antibiotics. Look," the nurse says, stopping Julie on her way into Kale's room, "we're a lot more relaxed about visitors' hours here. Especially since you're his mother. You can stay as long as you want, okay?"

"Okay." Julie gives the nurse a genuinely grateful smile. "Thanks." She crosses the room and takes stock of her son. The bruises on his face are still vivid; his shoulder and chest are carefully bandaged. At least the ankle bracelet is gone. Julie made about half a dozen futile phone calls before enlisting help. Dr. Reed told the detective that it was interfering with the medical equipment - which wasn't strictly speaking true, but Kale wasn't much of a flight risk at that point.

The curtains are drawn so although it's midday, Julie has to strain a little to see. She draws up a chair. "Kale?"

He opens his eyes to his mother's bruised and anxious face. "Huhh," he mumbles, ready to close them again.

"Oh, honey." Julie's eyes are suddenly flooded with tears of relief, and she quickly wipes them away with the back of her hand, not wanting to embarrass him. "It is so, so good to see you again."

He doesn't respond, not that she expected him to. She takes his hand between both of her own. There is so much to say, it's hard to know where to begin. "Listen, Kale, I, um... I was thinking about what you said that night. About needing me to be on your side. And, you know, you're right. And one of the things I'm going to do is go to the school board and get that Spanish teacher of yours fired. Not that you were right to punch him," she adds hastily, "but he had no business bringing up your father like that."

Julie stays the rest of that day and most of the next, until the demands of real life call her away. There is so much to be done. Messes to be cleaned up. Statements to be made to the police. But Kale has other visitors, too, not that any of them bring particularly good tidings.

Ronnie is first. "Hey, uh... My parents don't want me hanging out with you anymore, dude. It's not personal, it's just... I mean, we almost all got killed, you know? And I'm not going to get into Stanford next year if I'm breaking into houses and cars." He leans over his friend. "I'm real sorry, okay, dude?"

Then it's Ashley's turn. "My mom and I are moving out; we're going to get an apartment in the city. Dad is going to stick around until the house sells; I don't know what he'll do once the divorce is final but I also kind of don't care. Dad was furious when he found out you'd been spying on me. Be glad you're already in the hospital or he probably would have killed you himself." She laughs shakily. "Look, Kale, I think we both knew this wasn't going to be, like, a long-term thing. I mean, _you're_... and _I'm_..." Ashley throws out her hands in a gesture of finality.

"You said yourself, you were just bored. It was fun while it lasted, and then it wasn't fun. And _this_... well, it got out of hand way too fast. Turner, he... he broke into my car, he touched my _hair_." Ashley shudders, and Kale notices that her hair has been trimmed into a shoulder-length bob. And I just don't... _need_... that level of drama in my life right now." She stops pacing the floor and looks at him. "Jeez, would you _say_ something, already?"

And Kale just stares at all of them and doesn't say a word.


	3. Part Two

**Part Two**

**Three weeks later. The psychiatric ward.**

"Get. Me. Out of here."

Julie smiles a slight, sardonic smile. "At least you're talking to me now."

"Yeah, well." Kale looks up at her with a look of pure loathing in his eyes. "I don't think I've got anything that _you_ wanna hear."

"That's fine." She gestures towards the chair opposite his. "Mind if I sit?"

"Suit yourself." He's jiggling his leg, breathing loudly through flared nostrils, like Daniel always used to do when he was mad. "Nice of you to show up. _Finally_." The cuts and bruises are faint now, though his left arm is still in a sling. Kale stares out the window; Julie was half expecting that the windows would be barred, but they're not. Actually, this unit looks exactly like the rest of the hospital, except that the staff is more alert, and there's more of them. And she had to turn over her shoelaces when she signed in.

"Believe me, I wanted to come sooner. I'm working overtime at the restaurant right now - this place isn't cheap."

"And whose choice was that?" He glances in her direction, only for an instant.

"Actually, since you're under eighteen, it _was_ my decision."

Kale snorts derisively. "So, I'm stuck until November twelfth. Good to know."

"Hopefully not," Julie counters, "but it's kind of up to you. The ball's in your court now."

"You know, I was supposed to start school this week." Julie is a little surprised that he mentions this, since he hasn't exactly been an enthusiastic scholar of late. Maybe it's just the familiarity that he's craving. "Senior year."

"You let me worry about that, 'kay?" She smiles faintly, to herself. "I think the school board is a little bit afraid of me at the moment."

"Whatever." Kale shivers, and Julie realizes how thin he has become. He's always been a wiry kid; now he is downright skinny.

Julie sighs. "Look, it's okay if you hate me right now. I don't blame you. I can take it."

Kale mumbles something.

"What?"

"I said, I don't hate you." He doesn't seem to enjoy speaking the words. "I came looking for you, didn't I?"

"You did a lot more than that." _You saved me, Kale, and now I'm saving you right back_.

Across the room, a chair scrapes on the floor; Kale looks ready to jump out of his own skin. "You wanna tell me what this is all about? Huh? Was I an embarrassment to you? Didn't want your crazy kid around anymore?"

_So that's it,_ she thinks_, he's feeling abandoned._ But Julie has plenty to say on the subject of why. "I'll tell you what this is about," she enunciates. "How about the fact that you stopped eating? Maybe it's because you wouldn't say more than two words at a time for, I don't know, _weeks_? Do you think it could have to do with that?" Her voice is rising, people are beginning to stare, so she checks herself, almost whispering the next words. "Maybe it's because as soon as they let you shave, you tried to open up an artery with your razor. Do you think _that_ could be why?"

Kale is silent for a very long time.

"I'm not crazy, Mom."

"Nobody's saying you are." Already her anger is beginning to ebb.

"You know who's crazy?" Julie thinks he's going to say 'Robert Turner,' and she holds her breath, because it will be the first time he's said anything about it. But he doesn't. "My roommate is crazy, that's who. I mean, this guy is a genuine schizo or something. He spends half the night screaming - I can't even freakin' sleep."

"I'll talk to the nurses. Maybe they can switch you."

"Fine, you do that," Kale retorts. "Did you know they took away my iPod? Apparently I was going to strangle myself with the earbuds."

"Stop being so dramatic," Julie snaps. "This isn't _One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest_."

"Easy for you to say. You can leave any time you want."

"Jeez, Kale, you think this is _easy_ for me? You think I _like_ it?" Julie can't tell him that every night, she goes and stands in his empty bedroom for at least ten minutes. How for the first week or so, she left everything untouched; how, suddenly realizing how morbid that was, she frantically began picking up the dirty laundry.

"Yeah, I do." His mouth is drawn into an uncooperative line, and Julie thinks: He's too young to be like this. So brittle. So isolated. She wants to put her arms around him, but she knows he wouldn't take it well.

"Look, this is -"

"This is for my own good, right?" Kale interrupts. "Isn't that what you were going to say? Because it's _crap_. Next you're going to be all, 'This is going to hurt me worse than it hurts you.'"

"No, Kale, I wasn't going to say that." _Because I can see that it's hurting you plenty_.

"Then why?"

"Because I want you back."

He stares at the floor, swallowing hard. "Then let me out of here."

"No, you don't understand." She places a hand on his face so that he looks in her eyes for once. "I want _you_ back."

* * *

"I got you some Red Bull." Julie places a grocery sack on the table. She's wearing slip-on shoes today.

"I thought you don't like me drinking that stuff."

"I don't," she admits. "It rots your teeth. And hey, I brought you this."

It's his favorite USC sweatshirt - the one that used to be his dad's. "Why don't you put it on?" Julie suggests, and he does, wincing as he raises his arm over his head. As he is enveloped by the familiar scent of Mountain Breeze fabric softener, Kale slides his hand into the pocket, where his fingers encounter a familiar object. His iPod.

"Thanks," he says, a smile twitching at the corners of his mouth.

Julie gives him a conspiratorial wink. "Don't get caught, okay?"

"I won't." Kale's good at not getting caught.

"So."

"So," he repeats. "Is this the part where we talk about our _feelings_?"

"Maybe. Why, you got something you wanna share?"

"I dunno." Kale shrugs with his right shoulder only. It's a habit that will persist for the rest of his life, long after the injuries have healed. "You first."

Julie is slightly taken aback - she had only been teasing, but she's not going to miss this window of opportunity, rare as it is. "Okay." She rubs her palms against the knees of her skirt. "Okay, I've been seeing Dr. Phillips every week."

"Really? You have Irritated Ankle Disorder too?"

"Very funny. You know, you don't have the family monopoly on issues."

"Yeah, but you're my mom," Kale contends. "Mothers don't have issues."

"You know, it was scary for me too," she explains. "Scary in a different way. Scary in a way that you probably won't understand until you're a parent."

"So, what did you do?"

"I got a home security system," Julie admits. She doesn't tell him that when she finally made it home, the next morning, and saw the wreck inside the house - the aftermath of Kale's fight with Turner - that's when she _really_ lost it.

"Finally," Kale adds. Dad had been pestering her for _years_ about that.

"You know, a home security system wouldn't have stopped Robert Turner." Julie hates saying the man's name aloud. "But it makes _me_ feel safer. And... I'm kind of embarrassed to admit this, but I've been sleeping with all the lights on. I'm a little afraid to get the electric bill."

"You should put in some of those energy saver bulbs," Kale suggests with perfect seriousness.

"So, now you know." Julie leans forward, elbows on her knees. "There's my issues, all laid bare for your scrutiny. I'm still scared to death of... _that man_. I still keep seeing him when I close my eyes. I keep seeing what he did to you, and it just about kills me that I wasn't able to do more."

"Hey," Kale says, and suddenly _he's_ comforting _her_. "Hey, you did enough. We got out of that basement, didn't we?"

"Yeah. Yeah, we did," Julie agrees, although it's debatable whether they've really left it behind. "You know, everyone's been worried about you. Your grandparents, your Aunt Paula, they keep calling, wanting to know when they can see you. I've sort of been holding them off. As far as anyone knows, you're still recovering from the stabbing."

"Hey, thanks for not telling the whole family that I experienced a psychotic break. No, really, thank you."

"Any time."

"Maybe in the Christmas newsletter?" Kale suggests slyly.

"You know, Kale," she continues, "I don't want to live through another year like the last one."

"I don't either."

"All right," Julie says, sitting up straighter, "your turn."

"That's how it works? You bribe me with Red Bull, you open up to me just so you can... what, plumb the hidden recesses of Kale Brecht's psyche?" But he doesn't seem angry. He's almost smiling.

"That's how it works."

"Okay." He leans back, crosses his ankle over his knee. "Okay, I got one. So, the other night the janitor was out in the hall, and he had like a little portable radio. And it was playing that song, you know? I can't remember what it's called. _Is there gas in the car... yes there's gas in the car_..."

"'Kid Charlemagne.'" Julie sees where he's going with this. "Your dad loved Steely Dan. I think it was because his name was Dan too."

"Yeah." Kale stares at his feet. "You know, this shrink they've got me with, she... she keeps wanting to talk about 'survivor's guilt.'"

"Well, what do _you_ think? Is she a quack?"

"I dunno, I think she's onto something."

"I figured as much."

"I know you always said that it wasn't my fault. But let's face it, I did more or less kill my dad. That's what I do, right? Kill people?"

_He's seen way too much death for seventeen_, Julie thinks for the hundredth time. Once again she curses her inability to protect him. "What if had been the other way around? If your dad had been driving, and you were the one that died. Do you think I would hate him?"

"Probably not."

"Definitely not. It was an _accident_. I hate it, but accidents happen sometimes. And just so you know... Walking into that hospital, finding out you survived the crash, it was... it was like getting a piece of my life back that I thought I'd lost forever." She always gets choked up when she remembers that moment.

"But you don't know what he said." Kale's face is open, needy. "Turner. Robert Turner. I don't think I told you about this. He was going to kill you and set me up for it." Julie shudders. "He said **I** was going to kill you because you wouldn't stop blaming me. For Dad. And you know everybody would have believed it."

"That's ridiculous," Julie says automatically.

"Is it?"

She takes his cold hand between her own. "As if anything you did could make me stop loving you. Ridiculous. And if Robert Turner knew the first thing about that, he wouldn't have turned out like he did."

"Yeah, but..."

"Who are you going to believe?" She smiles wryly. "A deranged serial killer, or your own mother?"

"You know," Kale says slowly, "if it wasn't for you I think I would have just let him kill me."

"I could say the same about you." She releases his hand. "Are you still seeing him, like I do?"

"Nah," Kale says, "it's the girls. In the basement. And... you. What he was going to do to you..."

"Hey, you did a great job," Julie insists. "You did. I am so, so proud of you."

"I killed a man, Mom."

"You did what you had to do, honey."

"I don't want to end up like him." Kale wipes at his eyes, looking very scared. Julie finally enfolds him in a motherly embrace.

"You won't," she says. "You won't."

* * *

Kale, deeply engrossed in a book, doesn't even notice his mother until she's right beside him. "Mom!" he says, surprised, but seeming genuinely glad to see her. He stands up and actually voluntarily hugs her. "Jeez, Ma, you smell _fantastic_. I thought you had to work tonight?"

"You won't believe this," Julie says, tugging off her jacket, "but the water main broke and we had to shut down the restaurant."

"Time off for good behavior, huh?"

Julie smiles. "I guess you could say that." She's brought a sack full of takeout containers which she spreads out before him. "And we all had to take the leftovers so they wouldn't go to waste. Want some?"

Kale rolls his eyes dramatically. "I dunno, I guess I could choke some down." He pries the lid off the nearest container; it isn't even hot anymore, but he digs in with the gusto only a teenage boy can accomplish. "Ohh, this is transcendent. Did I tell you the food here _sucks_?"

"Yeah, I think you mentioned it once or twice." Julie sits down opposite her son, craning her neck to see the title on the spine of the book. "What're you reading? Oh, one of Dad's. That's nice."

"So, what else you got? I swear, I'd _kill_ for a piece of garlic bread."

Julie raises her hands in mock horror. "Easy, there. Yeah, there's bread in here somewhere." She rifles through the foil packages. "I got some tiramisu. That's your favorite, right?" She sits back and watches him eating for a while; if not for the setting, this could be a totally normal evening in their lives. She likes it.

"Hey, kiddo," Julie says after a while. "So, I talked to Dr. Crane this afternoon. She says you're doing really well."

"Fantastic," Kale mumbles around a mouthful of quattro formaggio. To his credit, though, he only sounds about fifty percent sarcastic.

"And, well, I was thinking we could talk about when you come home."

Kale stiffens, automatically hunching over his dinner. "Which will be when?"

"Soon."

"Now, how did I know you were going to say that."

"Look." She passes him a napkin, which he uses to wipe some alfredo sauce off the corner of his mouth. "I was thinking about... maybe selling the house. It's really too big for just the two of us, and you'll be off to college soon. And let's face it, real estate values have gone up dramatically since we bought it. I could get a nice apartment and the rest would go a long way in getting you through school."

"Really?" Kale looks at her quizzically. "But you love that house."

"I do," Julie admits. "But, it's not really the same without your dad, is it? And, I thought you might not like looking out your window every day and seeing Turner's house next door."

"That's not a bad idea," Kale concedes. "I'll think about it."

"You do that." Julie tears off a crust of garlic bread for herself. She doesn't actually eat it, only crumbles it into smaller and smaller pieces. "About the dating thing, too. I _am_ going to have to start dating... that hasn't changed. But I can wait until you're in college. It isn't that much longer."

"Do me a favor, 'kay? Get, like, a full background check on any guy you're even _thinking_ about going out with."

"Fair enough." Julie laughs. "That's not all. Look, there's some... there's a lot going on, with _him._ I've kind of kept it from you but there's things you'll have to know sooner or later."

"What kind of things?"

"Like his house, for example. It's been a... well, the term 'media circus' is completely overused, but that's what it is. This is a big story. Bigger than Bundy. And every news organization in the world has been doing interviews in front of his house, 'man-on-the-street' stuff, all that. And the cops. Actually, as soon as the cops figured out what they had on their hands, they called in the FBI. Which means that the men in the black suits have been coming and going, pretty much every hour of the day. It's like something from 'C.S.I.' Just about every darn thing in that house is a piece of evidence."

"I used to love 'C.S.I.'" Kale cracks open a Coke. "What are they going to do with the place?"

"Well, eventually the city's going to tear it down. The _abattoir_ isn't exactly up to code, you know?" Grimly, Julie smiles. "But it could take months or even years. There's a lot of open cases that need to get closed, first. You should know, they're calling him the 'Blue Mustang Killer.'"

"The Blue Mustang Killer," Kale repeats, trying out the words in his mouth. He hadn't even thought of his neighbor as one of those historic bad guys, like Jack The Ripper. "It's definitely one for the ages. And I bet all the auto body shops are getting good business, painting every 1960s Mustang in the country _red_?"

Julie laughs. "Something like that. Anyway, there's more. Because it's such a big story, everyone wants to know who it was that caught the killer."

"Which was me."

"Which was you. Because you're a minor, Kale, the police can't release your name to the media without my permission. As of right now, that's something I've declined to do." What she'd said to the cop was, _He's not a hero, he's not some kind of vigilante for justice. He's just a kid, and right now he's freaked out and he needs his space_. After that, she'd said nothing. "You want to come forward, later, it's totally your call. But if it's up to me, I'd say wait a while, like until you're out of school. Might make things weird."

"Probably don't need any more 'weird' for a while."

"Probably not," Julie agrees. "The cops wanted to do a whole... _thing_... but I talked them out of it. I struck a bargain instead. I got your juvenile record expunged, so you'd better stay on the straight and narrow from here on out, okay?"

"Okay."

Julie pulls a rubber-banded stack of envelopes out of her jacket pocket and tosses it on the table. "What's that?" Kale inquires, another forkful of pasta approaching his lips.

"Do you remember how he had all those souvenirs? There was a whole wall of drivers' licenses, IDs, keys and things from the women he'd killed."

"I remember," Kale says very quietly.

"They go back _years_. The irony is, because he was so meticulous, the families of all those girls are finally getting some closure."

"So those are letters."

"Yeah, the FBI gets them and forwards them to me. After the first couple, I couldn't even read them anymore. The letters from _mothers_ are the ones that really get me."

"It's a mom thing, huh?" Kale teases gently. "Like you bringing me all this food?"

"I can't shut it off," Julie says apologetically. "You don't have to read these now. Or ever. I just wanted you to know that they're out there." She glances at the clock on the wall. "Well, bud, time's up. I'd better go; it's going to be a heck of a day tomorrow."

"Hey, Mom?" he says. "Thanks." It sounds like he's thanking her for the food, but it's more than that.

"No, Kale," Julie responds, "thank _you_."

* * *

"Wow, that took _forever_," Julie says when they are finally free. "Seriously, Kale, there's less paperwork when you close on a house."

"I feel like I should have a button or a T shirt or something. 'I Am Officially Sane.'"

"Sane as you're going to be." Her tone, like her heart, is light. It's an impeccably beautiful day in late September. Kale, who has been indoors too long, squints as they step through the sliding doors and into the perfect autumn sunshine. "Hey, I've been meaning to tell you, I'm sorry about Ashley."

He does the one-shouldered shrug again. "It's all right. I mean... it sucked, but I'm kinda over it."

"I was going to say, I know it's one of those normal teenager things, but the timing was pretty bad."

Kale is strangely philosophical. "Nah, she's right. It's not like we really had anything in common. Anyway, I'm not worried about it 'cause I've got this." Without breaking his stride he rolls up the sleeve of his Ramones t-shirt, displaying the web of scars on his left shoulder. "Chicks dig scars, Mom. Go on, ask me how I got 'em."

"Umm... I was there?"

"I've been practicing, Mom. Just do it."

"Okay, how'd you get the scars?"

"I was in a knife fight," Kale says with an air of practiced nonchalance. "Pretty cool, huh?"

"Yes, that's very manly, son." Julie chuckles. "You want to go get some breakfast?"

He pats his stomach. "I already had my Rice Krispies."

"Brunch, then? Better enjoy it while you can, mister; you're going back to school on Monday."

"How about omelets at Salt Shaker? Since you're buying."

"Sounds good." She knows he'll probably have a chocolate milkshake with it; he usually does.

Impulsively, Kale slings an arm around his mother's shoulders. "I need a fedora," Julie muses.

Kale looks at her oddly. "You going crazy, Mom? Because I know a guy..."

"No," she says, "I was thinking of 'Casablanca.' You know, at the end, when they're going off into the fog?" That had been one of Dan's favorite movies. "I don't know, you just reminded me of that."

Kale doesn't say anything, only shakes his head in mock horror.

"Okay, I'm going crazy."

Briefly, he laughs. She thinks it's the most beautiful sound she's heard in a long time.

**the end.**

_Reviews are nice, people! Come on, don't make me beg!_


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